alternate universe

There was a rather lively debate on Minnesota Public Radio’s February 27th Musicheads show (I just listened to the podcast a few days ago) concerning not only new music, but the “band hitting it big” debate that’s raged for decades. In the days since the early 1980s when alternative (or alt rock and its derivatives like alt.country) came to the fore as an umbrella term for indie, goth, punk, ska, Brit-pop, etc., there have been war-like attacks and counter-attacks on what the term means – and what bands fall under the club’s moniker. I think long diatribes on the genealogy of the term are for for times (preferably when I’m not around) since I’ve jumped onboard with Musichead Mark Wheat’s resolution to stop labeling music (with my amendment of still being able to use good music and/or crappy music as descriptive terms). What made the show so interesting was Wheat’s statement that he didn’t want to see the Irish band The Frames become popular because he didn’t think their music was worth the popularity, or in fact, that they were alternative, since he felt they were catering to the masses and simply toting the alternative name along with them. This is the opposite of the ideal held by alt music fans from the 80s who didn’t want his or her band to become popular because he didn’t want to lose that bit of hip/cool/love that had been mated to that band. By my reckoning this is a wholly new idea…and one that I embrace. The equations, comparatively, look something like this:

Alternative band > becomes famous > I lose something I love
“Alternative band” > becomes famous > I get something I hate

The importance? The quotes I’ve put around the second equation is indicative of a band taking advantage of the alternative label in order to highjack the grass roots movement that follows alternative music. Believe it or not, even in this day and age, there are tons of bands hammering the pavement, trying to survive, making very little money, and selling small numbers of CDs – bands and artists that are exponentially better than 99% of what is mainstream – and this was never a problem. It was easy to hate the Britneys, N*Syncs, Mariahs, and Shanias of the world because they were bad, we knew they were bad, and we just ignored them. This new idea lays bare a claim that there is an ark of bands from the last 10 years that have played the alternative name (see Coldplay) while producing something that isn’t cutting edge, isn’t alternative, and quite honestly, isn’t very good. Unfortunately, it lumps a lot of bad music in with scads of really good artists and brings down the entire level of quality. What we end up with is a battle for a limited number of music listeners, buyers, concert goers, and promoters through a spectrum full of mostly crappy artists. The greater the promotion (paid for and crammed down our throats by bigger record companies), the greater the chance of success. The labeling of music as alternative intrigues lots of spenders into thinking they can go to a nice, big venue and live on the edge while listening to some artist labeled 'alternative' instead of heading over to Iota or Jammin’ Java where they could save a ton of money, enjoy themselves, and contribute to the cause.

Maybe I fold this into some pertinent to the issues of today...

Sam Brownback can call himself a liberal all day if he wants – that doesn’t make it so.

Peace,

T.D. "Leader of the Conservative Movement" (did it work?)